ing like a steam engine; but
when he wants to do other things he'll do 'em with the same zeal. I
gather from the Colonel that he doesn't give a rap for anybody or
anything just so he gets to a book. Self control? He doesn't know any
more about it than water coming down a rain pipe!"

"Don't you think the desire to study is commendable?"

"Certainly, but it requires no self control. He studies just as he would
scratch his hand if it itched. I should call it natural, rather than
commendable; or fortunate, if you choose. Jane," he now looked her fully
and seriously in the eyes, "there are lots of people who go through life
with tense lines about their mouths, saying nothing, never getting into
devilment, and the world tiptoes behind them whispering: 'What
wonderful self control!' It's all rot! Self control is a thing we
unconsciously cultivate from the moment our minds begin to coordinate.
It's like building a dam across our hidden river of tendency; and a hit
or miss sort of structure it is, too. In one man the current of this
tendency may be like a trickling stream, and a handful of materials are
enough to keep it in check. In another, it may be a raging torrent, and
he may slave night and day, gathering stone and sand, and sealing them
with his very blood. But suppose in the end the torrent gets away from
him! He fails, you say. Yet is he weaker after that herculean task than
the other chap who dammed up his stream of tendency with the side of his
boot? He publicly goes under,--yes! But may he not still be finer than
his two-by-four brother whose temperament ran only from the ice-box to
family prayers and back to the ice-box? I want to tell you," he
concluded in the same low, even voice, "that in the Big Summing Up, the
Celestial Clearing House will show many a poor gutter-runner more
entitled to wear medals for having made a game fight for respectability
than some of his anemic superiors who all their days walked slowly, and
were called by their fellows examples of great character. Don't be too
quick to size up a chap's pace, Lady Jane, until you know how red his
blood is, and how much weight he's carrying. I must go now!"

While he had been speaking, the moon, full and mellow, climbed high
above the house and shed a mere suggestion of light--a sort of luminous
radiance--into the thickly sheltered circle. He stood up quickly with
the air of one who had said too much, reached for a cigarette, and then
for a match whic